


Pit in my Stomach

by ThreeDotPattern



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: But also you can't prove that it's not, But not an extreme amount, F/M, Get ready for awkward Will, It's canon bros, M/M, Mutual Pining, actually not completely canon probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-01-29 04:44:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21404407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeDotPattern/pseuds/ThreeDotPattern
Summary: Nico never wanted this. But somehow, he found him self working in the camp infirmary and falling deeper and deeper into a little pit of liking Will. He hadn't planned on either things happening. But he also didn't completely mind. Basically what happens in the three days that Will forces Nico to spend in the infirmary with him. And then some kinda cute stuff happens afterwards.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Nico di Angelo & Will Solace
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

"Please tell me that you aren't serious about this," Nico said as Will handed him an ice pack and some ambrosia.

"Relax, Neeks, You're icing bruises and administering ambrosia to some of the less damaged campers. Just give them one or two of the pre-cut cubes depending on how bad their injuries are. I think you can handle it,” Will smirked at him, “now go.” Will made a gesture to shoo him away.

“Fine, but don’t call me Neeks,” Nico said as he walked off rolling his eyes.

Will had checked his vitals and overall health every thirty minutes on the first day of being in the infirmary. But after that, he had put him right to work. Which Nico still couldn't understand, putting him in a place of healing made less than zero sense. But nevertheless, he walked around with his ice pack and gave out some ambrosia. Occasionally having to ignore the strange looks and judgemental glares he got from some of the campers.

Sometimes he would see Will caught up with all of his actual hard work and he had to smile, Nico hated to admit it, but Will was kinda cute when he was completely focused on his work.

Once, Nico looked over at him and caught his eye, Nico glared at him but Will just gave him a big smile and two thumbs up. Nico rolled his eyes and went back to work, but couldn't ignore the somewhat disgustingly familiar pit in his stomach that was slowly opening up a bit more every time he looked at Will.

At the end of the day, he walked with Will over to the dining pavilion, they were talking, well really, Will was talking as Nico listened in amused silence. When they made it there, Nico's almost-smile quickly went away as he turned to go towards his empty table, ignoring everyone around him laughing and having a good time. Of course, Percy and Jason were both sitting at their own tables too, but their tables were right next to each other, so they could at least talk, but the Hades table was so far off to the side that it was useless to even try to talk to people. He slowly began his walk of shame. When he made it there, he sat down, and he barely offered anything to his father, he didn't think he would mind, and if he did, Nico didn't care.

The next morning, Nico made his way to the medical cabin, he didn't want to acknowledge it, but in the back of his head, he was secretly sad that he wouldn't have an excuse to hang out with Will all day anymore.

When he walked in, he was greeted by a smiley Will already taking stock on supplies. He was wearing his classic flip flops and now, a doctor's coat, but his hair looked like he hadn't brushed it in a while, and he had bags under his eyes. Nico approached him, worried about what could be wrong.

"Will?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, oh, hi Nico. How are you? 

"I'm fine, what's wrong with you?"

"I didn't get much sleep. But doctors-"

"You're not a doctor," Nico interrupted.

"Doctors can't always afford the luxury of a full night's rest. Ana from the Aphrodite cabin came in around midnight, she had tried an off-brand skin-smoothing treatment and she put it all over her arms and legs, and it started to tingle but she just washed it off and thought it would be fine. She came in about two hours later with almost second-degree burns because she was really allergic to the main ingredient in it. I was obviously on call, so I woke up and worked for hours to save her skin and help her, especially since she has a really low tolerance for ambrosia, so I had to rely a lot on normal medicine. I didn't really get to sleep and restock orders are due today at noon, so I have to get it done today, but I'm probably going to go to sleep as soon as I get all of this stuff done. Unless, Apollo forbid, there's another medical emergency, that's why I look so crazy. You can get started giving ambrosia to less injured campers. And your concern is really heart-touching," with that, Will handed him a bag of ambrosia and went off to ask one of his siblings where something was.

Nico stared after him, stunned for a moment at Will's explanation before starting on his rounds.

After a moment, Will stopped right by him again, "and to be fair, for all intents and purposes, I am a doctor," Nico just rolled his eyes and walked away.

They walked to dinner the exact same way as yesterday. Every second he spent listening to Will blabber on about stuff he felt the pit in his stomach widen just a little bit.

When they got there, Nico went to sit at his table before he felt someone grab his arm gently and turn him around, it was Will, smiling shyly down at him. "Hold on, Nico, would you like to sit with us, I can write you a ‘doctors note’ for it."

Nico looked down at the hand still on his upper arm and Will pulled it away quickly, putting it down at his side and grabbing the hem of his shirt nervously.

"Okay," Nico said simply, walking over to the table and waiting for Will to follow after him and sit down before also sitting down. As the meal began and they had returned to the table after giving their offerings, Nico gave Will a small smile as a little thank you for letting him sit at his table. He appreciated not being lonely.

Will walked with him all the way back to the Hades cabin, needlessly bypassing the Apollo cabin. He wasn't talking though, it was odd. Almost eerie. They made it all the way to the door of the cabin before Will spoke. 

"Nico, I think you should keep working at the infirmary. I always need some helping hands around, you would definitely be a good addition to the team. Only when you want to, of course, I know you enjoy training and things, but it would give you something more constructive to do. And I enjoy having more friendly faces around, you would not believe some of the things I have to put up with from injured campers. You don't have to answer or anything, just drop by whenever you want." Will put two fingers up to his temple and did a salute before deciding that what he had just done was stupid and stopping halfway through. 

Then he turned away and walked off, the sound of his flip flops slowly receding into the night.

As Nico lay in bed, he thought about what he would do in the morning. Probably training. But there was a whole afternoon he had to plan out. And he didn't have anything scheduled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico is still unable to make up his mind on whether to go to the infirmary or not. Then fate decides to take the wheel.

Nico woke up late the next day. And he missed breakfast. That was the downside of being his own head counselor and having no sense of time. It didn't help that he slept through the five alarms he had set the previous night.

When he got to the training arena, he bummed a granola bar off of Jason, who was already working out, slowly going through the motions of various combat moves he had long since perfected. Then he got down to work.

Breathe. Concentrate. Focus. Nico slowly brought his sword up from its resting position to a fighting stance. He took another deep breath before launching into his attack. He brought his sword up, slashing the dummy quickly across the stomach before turning around and kicking it in the same place. As he turned back around he jumped up and brought his foot almost all the way up to the dummies head. It was a move he had been working on. Not the most practical in a quick battle, but it was still good for his flexibility and general fitness. 

He trained for a few more hours before going to lunch. After working so hard, his muscles were happy to take a break. He had worked extra hard to get the thoughts of what he was going to do about the whole Will situation off of his mind. But now, when it was all over, he had to face his feelings none-the-less.

He wrestled with what he was going to do as he ate his poorly crafted sandwich. It wasn't that he was bad at making sandwiches, he understood how to build them, but had a hard time figuring out what flavors went well together. Tomatoes and olives were not it. By the end of lunch and the parts of his sandwich that he could stand to eat, he still hadn't figured out what he was going to do.

Jason decided his fate for him. As Nico was walking out of the dining pavilion, he saw Jason and waved back at him as Jason came over to talk. Nico didn't even see the arrow coming his way. Jason didn't either. It hit Jason right in the middle of the shoulder. As he crumpled to the ground and latched his hand onto his shoulder, Nico knelt down with him.

"Oh my gods, Jason, are you okay?" He asked Jason hurriedly, "who threw that?!" Nico yelled, turning the way the arrow came to see a very sorry looking camper yelling that he was exactly that, Sorry.

Jason didn't reply to his question, he just slowly staggered to his feet, face white with pain before beginning his walk to the infirmary. Nico quickly went to stand next to him, helping to support him as the two walked together towards the place Nico had been avoiding all day.

"Where's Will?" Nico yelled as he got into the infirmary, Jason looking paler and paler by the second. He was probably about to pass out.

Will came running over to them, he saw Jason and his face set into a serious, completely focused expression. Will carefully and efficiently took Jason from Nico and laid him down in the bed. Quickly grabbing all of the supplies he needed and getting down to pulling the arrow out of his arm. Nico was hovering over him as he did, but Will didn't seem to mind.

It took around three hours to get the arrow out of his arm, apparently, it hadn't gone fully through so he had to cut his arm open even more to dig the head out of his muscles. Then Will had to pack it with gauze and sew it up before leaving him some ambrosia to eat when he woke up. Jason had in fact passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow of the hospital bed.

Nico stayed there, checking up on Jason every so often while Will continued working and sent him a sweet smile every time their eyes met. Which was way more than the pit in Nico's stomach could handle.

They didn't go down to dinner. Will didn't at least, he was allowed to skip anything when there was a patient in critical care such as Jason. So Will sent Nico down to get him some food. When Nico got back, they sat down on a countertop next to each other to eat. Will sat so close that their legs were touching and Nico felt like he was having a seizure, a very quiet, unnoticeable seizure. Luckily, Will didn't notice.

They talked to each other and ate for what felt like hours. Until Jason woke up.

Will hopped up and gave him nectar, ambrosia, and water. Then he checked his wounds before saying he needed to go to bed again.

Jason smiled weakly at Nico for a second before passing back out. 

Percy came in a few minutes after that to check on his 'best bro'.

"How is my man?" Percy asked, resting his hand on Jason's limp one as if he was a heartbroken widower.

"You're man is fine, Percy. But I'm sure he could use a kiss on his boo-boo to make him feel better," Will replied sarcastically as he cleaned up Jason's bedside table.

Percy solemnly kissed the bandages on Jason's shoulder, ignoring Will rolling his eyes.

"Hey, Jackson, do you know when Piper and Annabeth are getting back? I feel like she'll be concerned about this," Will said.

"They were planning on being back around seven I think. Bye everyone," Percy waved as he left the building. 

Annabeth and Piper had gone on a girl's day trip to New York after a bit of charmspeak was used on Chiron. Jason had wanted to go, to bad he wasn't a girl. Piper was definitely going to freak out with worry when she found out about this.

Just as predicted, Nico knew the exact moment that Piper found out about Jason's day. It was when she barged into the infirmary, face stricken with worry until she found Nico's face and then Jason's emotionless, unconscious face.

"What happened to him? Is he gonna be okay?" She asked, Firing several more rapid-fire questions at Will as he mopped the floor preparing for curfew even though he would be sleeping in here tonight.

"Relax Piper, I know you're very stressed out right now, which is understandable. But he will be completely fine. He got an arrow shot into his arm. But I got it out and all fixed up, and I'm gonna get so much nectar and ambrosia into him that it'll heal right up without even much of a scar. Plus, Percy gave the spot a kiss, so he should survive," Will said all of these things sarcastically and sweetly. The perfect balance he maintained so well was a huge part of what made him so likable.

"Ohh, well if Percy helped him then he should be fine," Piper rolled her eyes before grabbing a chair and sitting next to his bedside. "How long am I allowed to stay here?"

"Since I'm sleeping here you can too, plus, if Chiron disagrees your charmspeak should work perfectly." Nico decided that that was his cue to leave.

He started to walk out as Will followed him to the door, "Good night, Nico. I know today was crazy but I had a good time talking to you at dinner."

Nico looked at him, the edges of his lips slightly turned up, "me too, Will."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason leaned in too close for Will to hear, "I guess I'm not the only reason you're here."  
Nico blushed as Jason nodded toward Will. "N-no, that-that's not why I'm here," Nico stuttered out.  
"Okay, if that's what you need to tell yourself."

Nico came back the next day. He was telling himself that it was only for Jason. He was only going because Jason was one of his only friends, so he needed to support him. But the irrational part of his brain was screaming about how cute Will was as he slowly walked toward the infirmary.

When he got there, Will was wiping down some cabinets, all of the medical supplies that had previously been in it spread over the floor. Today must have been a slow day so far, only four people were in the infirmary. Will, Kayla, a camper that had a sling holding up her right arm who was slowly eating a chunk of ambrosia, and Jason, who was sitting up in bed. Jason smiled wide when Nico walked in, his shoulder was still bandaged up, but he didn't look as in pain as he had the previous day.

"Hey, Nico!" Will called out, smiling at him brilliantly for a second before going back to his task. Nico walked over to Jason who was also smiling at him, though it was far less bright then Will's.

"I figured that Piper and you would be bound at the hip today," Nico said as he sat down, smiling gently at Jason. Nico didn't smile at anyone, but Jason was an exception.

"She's been around all day, you just missed her. She went to bring me some Gatorade from the store. I really wanted some," he looked sheepish, "thank you for coming in to see me," he leaned in close and talked too quietly for Will to hear, "though I guess I'm not the only reason you're here."

Nico blushed as Jason nodded toward Will. "N-no, that-that's not why I'm here," Nico stuttered out.

"Okay, if that's what you need to tell yourself." Nico stayed by Jason's side for a few more minutes before Piper returned and Nico suddenly felt very strongly like he was a third wheel.

He stood and wandered over to Will quietly. He expected to have scared him, he scared everyone with his quiet approaches, and for good reason, it was very disconcerting. But as Nico moved behind Will, the other boy didn't look up, he just made an off-hand comment about how he knew Nico was behind him.

"What? How? How did you possibly know I was behind you?" Nico exclaimed as he walked into Will's view.

Will looked at him with a completely serious expression, “I can sense your presence," Nico looked at him a bit confused for a second. That was, before Will broke out laughing, “Just kidding, I could hear you walking over to me, you stepped on the loud board over there so I knew you were walking towards me. You can’t fool me,” he then pointed at some things on the ground, "now help me refill this cabinet, death boy."

They worked in companionable silence for the rest of the day. Systematically (though Will's systems were a bit wild) cleaning out the whole infirmary. 

When dinner time came, Nico was invited to eat with them once again. He found that even after everything he had been through, spending the day with Will and talking to Jason could actually make him happy.

Days went on almost the same way after that. Jason was healed enough to leave in about three days, and yet, Nico kept spending his days at the infirmary. He always trained in the morning, while, from nine to noon he would never wake up early. Then he would spend the rest of the day in the infirmary or with the Apollo cabin, he very slowly grew to like their company. Chiron either didn't care that he wasn't participating in all of his own camp activities or he hadn't noticed yet.

It turned out to be the latter as he eventually noticed. About a week after Nico had started regularly eating at the Apollo table, it's not like they needed more room as almost everyone had gone home for the school year, when Chiron walked up to the table.

"Umm, Nico, what are you doing?" He asked.

"I'm sitting here," Nico replied matter-of-factly.

"You should not be, you should be sitting at your father's table. It's offensive to him not to, and really, it's just camp rules, I've noticed that you've been breaking a lot of those recently," He said, looking deeply uncomfortable with how Nico was staring wide-eyed at him.

Nico went to reply but was cut off by Will who was clearly sensing a disaster. "Actually, I'm doing a treatment for Nico, seeing if spending time with positive people will improve his mood and help with his skeleton summoning tendencies. He's my friend so I want him to be happy, and if this is the way to do it, then it should be allowed. Unless you don't want that. And if you're still unconvinced then..." Will trailed off as he pulled a pad of paper and pen from the pocket in the side of his green scrub shirt. He quickly scribbled something onto the paper before tearing it off and handing it to Chiron.

"From the desk of Dr. Solace,” he read off the paper, “my patient and friend Nico di Angelo requires an exemption from all camp rules as a result of his tendency to summon skeletons when left alone.” He looked up at Will’s obnoxious grim for a second before conceding. “Alright Will, fine. You can do this I don't even want to fight with you about it because I know that I will not win. But no one else, absolutely no one," Chiron said as he walked off, looking very exasperated.

Nico looked at Will as Chiron walked away and smiled at him, an actual real smile as he giggled softly. Nico then looked mortified as he realized that he had giggled. Wanting to crawl into a hole even more when Will looked at him softly and smiled back.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been about a month since Nico had started “working” in the infirmary when Kaitlyn came in. She had been on the rock wall when she got distracted by one of her siblings (Lacy, this girl that was really sweet but a total try-hard according to Kaitlyn) and was caught off guard by a bunch of lava falling down the wall.

When she had come in with all of the terrible burning flesh, Nico had wanted to hide, it was disgusting. He was a tough guy but the things that the camp medics had to stomach was too much sometimes. But Will had looked her over and determined that Nico could handle it.

Nico had thrown up before gathering all of the supplies that he had seen Will grab for burns in the past. The first thing he did was feed her some more ambrosia and nectar to numb the pain. He slowly cleaned the wounds with a disinfectant spray, her screaming was the worst part.

After what felt like a thousand years, Nico was finally done and Kaitlyn had long since fallen asleep with a large, large amount of ambrosia and nectar in her system. He had turned to Will, exhausted in all ways, and practically fallen into his arms. Will had kept him from falling onto the ground, carrying his exhausted form back to his cabin. As he tucked him in, Will gave him a gentle smile, "you did really good today, Neeks-"

Nico mumbled something incoherent about not calling him Neeks.

Will chuckled before continuing, "I was very impressed. You're turning out to be a very good medic," at that, Will patted his hand semi-awkwardly before leaving. Nico smiled weakly as he fell asleep that night.

Over the next week of her recovery, Nico took care of all the medical needs she had. the second day after her initial wounds were inflicted, Nico was changing her bandages. When he went to change the bandages on her chest, she stopped him, panic in her eyes, "hold on, Nico, I can explain things, I swear."

"What would you need to explain, you're transgender, right? I think that's the term, right?" Nico replied, holding up a hand to stop her.

She instantly relaxed a bit, "Yeah, I am. And that's okay with you?"

"Of course, I'm very happy for you. Now can I change your bandages?"

From there, their relationship had grown a lot and she was one of the closest friends Nico had ever had. 

“Hey, Nico. My dude, want to come to a small get together thing I’m having to celebrate my sixteenth birthday. It’ll just be a small group of people on the beach next Saturday night. It would be awesome if you could come,” Kaitlyn was now saying to him.

It was the first time that Nico had ever been invited to a party. As she looked at him expectantly for a response, Nico found himself smiling from ear to ear for real at the sweet gesture.

"Yes, I will Kaitlyn," Nico replied. Then, doing something very out of character, he pulled her into a quick hug before practically running away.

Gods, what was wrong with him. First he was letting Will hold him and carry him to bed, then he was hugging Kaitlyn. The last two people he had hugged had been Hazel and Bianca, and that was different because they were his sisters. He cared about them more than anyone else in the world. Not people he had become friends with in the last two months.

He decided to go train, exercising would clear his mind.

He destroyed the dummy he was practicing on in three seconds. Seriously, he had Jason time him.

Unfortunately, his great idea of a coping mechanism turned out to not work at all. He still couldn't get Wills gentle smile out of his head. And he couldn't stop thinking about how great it was to have a friend like Kaitlyn that included him in things. And most of all, he was consumed by the thoughts that his life had been very sad up to this point in terms of social interaction that he was this affected by people showing simple kindness to him.

He spun himself into a full spin move before bringing his sword to a heart-pumping stop when he realized that Will's neck was right there.

Nico expected Will to be mad at him. Nico had just almost killed him, so maybe a little indignant at least. But the mad man standing before him simply laughed. 

"Geez Nico, I know you like skeletons and all, but I would prefer for you to not turn me into one," he said before falling into another fit of laughter.

Nico just stood there, jaw on the floor as Will swatted the stygian blade away from his neck in one, smooth, unconcerned movement. And that itself was the most concerning part.

"So, my dark prince, shall we spare?" Nico heard Will ask a moment later. He whirled around to find Will holding a horribly unbalanced, primitive training sword in a stance that made him look like he was about to fall over. It was hilarious. Nico would have grimaced at how wrong the whole situation looked, but Will's charming, fake debonair smile made him quirk a corner of his lips up in an almost smirk.

"Alright, but you have to be very prepared to lose, oh idiot mage of healing," Nico copied the fake bow that Will gave him before resuming an actual fighting stance. Giggling at Will's unbalanced position.

Will jumped into an attack, just managing to right himself before face planting as Nico easily side stepped. He brought down the butt of his blade on the wrist that was gripping Will’s sword. He was shocked when Will held onto the sword easily. He then whirled around and executed an extremely difficult move that even Nico hadn't mastered yet. He caught Nico's blade with his own. As he locked the hilts together, he twisted his blade and flung Nico's sword out of his hand and thirty feet off to the side, planting it blade first in the ground. Before Nico could even process what was happening, the other boy had his dull sword point to Nico's neck, smiling that debonair smile again. The time though, the smile was full of triumphant smugness.

Nico opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out for a long time. He stood their gaping like a fish until Will pulled the point away.

"How?" Was the only word he could say.

Will planted the tip of the sword in the ground and leaned on it, "Nico, I've been living at this camp year round since I was seven. And now I'm sixteen. That's almost ten years. I wasn't claimed as a child of Apollo until I was ten, that lead to me living and fighting with the Hermes cabin for three years. If you didn't fight then you missed out on stuff. Then I was claimed and I kept up my fighting skills. But I also eventually became the head medic. People don't expect a healer to be a good fighter, so I use it to my advantage." Will smiled easily, he seemed unaffected by the sad things in his past.

Nico wanted to ask more, but he didn’t want to pry. He wouldn’t want someone to pry into his past.

"You can ask me about my past. I know you want to," Will said. He gestured for Nico to follow him as they walked to an overlook in the arena.

"How do you know I want to ask you things?" Nico asked as they hoisted themselves up on the ledge.

"Your eyes, duh. Anyway, ask away, death boy."

"I don't want to be rude, but why did you start coming to the camp at seven. Isn't that kind of young?"

"Yeah. Obviously my dad has to many kids to care about specifically me, so he wasn’t any help. And my mom was a small scale actress in the late nineties and early 2000’s. She wasn't insanely famous, but because of her talent and beauty, she caught Apollo's eye. Then, she gave birth to me. It pushed her into postpartum depression and five years later, she overdosed. She died," Will wiped his eyes quickly on the back of his hands quickly. "I went into child services until I was like seven. I fell into the hands of a legacy foster parent and they sent me to camp half-blood," Will sighed. He leaned back against the wall and sighed heavily. He was such a bright guy, but right now, in the shadow of the arena wall he looked like he had taken Atlas' place under the sky.

"Okay, sob story over, I can fight really good is basically the point." Will smiled at him tiredly.

"Wow. We should spar again sometime, I can finally fight against a worthy opponent," Nico said, he smiled softly.

They spared for the rest of the afternoon and then made plans to go to Kaitlyn's party together. Nico didn't have the guts to ask, but he really hoped that when Will said it was a date, he meant it that way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A thrilling conclusion to this fluff addled, soft fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reference Atlas three times in this fic, two just in this chapter. I don't know why, hope you don't mind too much.

Nico stared at his closet hopelessly. He wasn't really one for fashion, and he never had been. Did people have to wear special things for parties? Yes?

He needed an outside opinion. And he knew just where to get one.

He found Will at the archery field. Today, the Apollo cabin was practicing archery, which Nico would never ever be good at. So he had skipped today for sword practice and now a crisis over what he should wear.

"Will," Nico said, startling him out of his deep focus, making him miss his target and almost impale someone. “Sorry, Will,” Nico hissed.

"Sorry!" Will yelled to the person he almost impaled before turning to Nico. "What's up, Neeks?" He asked.

"Don't call me Neeks, and I need help," Nico said as Will walked over to set his bow down.

"Lay it on me," Will said, sounding a bit like a dad as he sat down.

"Alright, nerd-"

"Don't call me a nerd when you're the one that needs help," Will interrupted. 

"Alright, bitch. Is that better," Will frowned playfully at him, "anyway, my problem is that I don't know what to wear to Kaitlyn's party. I wear the same three shirts every day, but I'm pretty sure that you need to wear nice things to parties, I could be wrong. Help," Nico said. Will wasn't much help at the moment, laughing softly at his confusion.

"First of all, you don't have to wear nice things for a party. Technically, you don't have to wear nice things anywhere. But if you do want to look nice, I can come over to your cabin later and help you pick out clothes if you want," Will replied. Nico must have audibly sighed in relief because then Will was laughing again at his dramatics.

"Umm...thanks. I'll see you at...five?" Nico replied, looking down to try and hide the heat he felt rising in his cheeks.

"That sounds great, Nico. I'll be there." As Nico was about to leave, he glanced up to see Will sending him an easy smile before turning back to practice.

At the sound of a knock at his cabin door, Nico rose from his bed anxiously to answer the door. 

"Hi Will, I'm glad that you're here, I'm pretty lost," Nico said before he got the chance to really look at him.

Nico always thought that Will looked attractive, his messy hair was cute, same with the flip flops, scrub shirts, and occasional lab coat he always wore. But now, Will looked unbelievable. He was dressed in a short-sleeve white button-down and light-wash jeans. His hair was combed back again and he was smiling sweetly at Nico.

Nico willed his blush away before stepping aside so Will could enter the room.

The medic wasted no time getting to Nico's closet, pulling out just about every article of clothing he owned from the closet. Not that it was that many clothes.

Over the next half hour, Will had Nico try on almost every look he could possibly make with the clothes Nico had. He eventually settled on a combination of plain black skinny jeans and an olive green T-shirt underneath an open black short-sleeve button-down. As Nico stood in front of his bathroom mirror, Will was messing with his hair.

"I don't know why you don't do more with your hair, Neeks," Will said, ignoring the glare he got from Nico. " It's so nice, you can style it in so many different ways." Will moved to sit on the counter in front of Nico so that he could better reach his hair, blocking Nico from seeing in the mirror.

Nico didn't like to admit that he was definitely touch starved, but he couldn't ignore how great it felt to have Will running his hands through his hair. He had a hard time ignoring his growing crush to the guy with him sitting his close. The gentle scent of his cologne didn't help.

After Will was finally done, he covered Nico's eyes with his hands before jumping off the counter. After a moment of classic, cute Will dramatics, his eyes were uncovered.

Nico's hair was swooped up and to the side gently, it was shiny, and no hair was out of place. Nico reached up and touched his hair for a second before his hand was swatted away by a laughing Will. 

Damn, I look pretty good, Nico thought. Realizing that he looked almost hot. His thoughts were interrupted by Will giggling.

"Are you kidding, you look incredible, man," Will exclaimed, walking over to stand in front of Nico.

"Oh my gods, did I say that out loud, I didn't mean to. But yeah, I look pretty good, I guess."

"Okay, be quiet. You look amazing. Honestly, I always think you look amazing," said Will, looking down at the ground with a tiny smile on his face.

"I...I think the same...about you...ya know," Nico was stuttering a bit, he knew he seemed like an idiot. He expected Will to frown at him a bit. He expected to be told that Will didn't like him that way, that he misunderstood what Will was saying. But instead, Will raised his head, the tiny smile on his face growing into a larger one by the second. Will's eyes were shining as he brought one of his hands up to cup the side of Nico's face, pulling him in closer slowly.

Nico felt his knees go weak as their lips connected. His lips were so soft, which was exactly what he expected. Then he realized that it was his first kiss, which was great and all. But it was Will, he didn't want to ruin it with Will, he was terrified to ruin any good thing he had. And his friendship with Will was one of the best things in his life. 

He pulled back quickly, terrified for a moment. The confusion in Will's eyes that was quickly turning to hurt was all the confirmation Nico needed to know that he had once again messed everything up.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't want to mess everything up, and then I did. You can go, you don't have to go to the party with me," Nico said, turning away from him in shame.

"Nico, you didn't-" Will began before Nico cut him off.

"Just go, I know I did something wrong like I always do, please, just fucking leave for Hade's sake," Nico practically yelled as Will slowly went to walk out of the cabin. The stricken look on his face made Nico's heart ache so badly, his whole life felt like constant heartache.

He fell onto his bed heavily, like he was Atlas and the weight of the sky was being dropped on him. He didn't understand why this hurt so much. He had experienced much worse in his life, his mother dying, his sister dying, his father's disappointment with him, years feeling terrible about his sexuality, and humiliation coupled with rejection every time he put himself out there. That wasn't even counting all of the physical pain he had been put through. All of those things should have hurt more than disappointing Will. But hurting him made him hurt an unreasonable amount.

He didn't want to get up. But he told Kaitlyn he would be at the party. He couldn't break a promise to one of the first normal demi-gods he had befriended.

He pulled himself out of the bed, praying to aphrodite-something he would never do under less dire circumstances-that he wouldn't see Will and if he did it would all work out.

When he made it to the beach, he was delighted by the bonfires and soft chatter around them. As he wandered through the party looking for Kaitlyn and Will, one to greet and the other to avoid. He was surrounded by all of the people that he never thought about in his day-to-day life. They were hanging out, living the same way Nico had always wanted and now probably had a chance at. Some children of Nike were playing bean bag toss against a few children of Hermes. Two people that he didn't recognize were making out on the ground, Nico quickly looked away in embarrassment. Then he spotted the girl he was looking for.

"Hey, happy birthday!" Nico said as he approached her, hugging her quickly.

"I'm so glad that you came, it means a lot that you're here for me," she replied. Nico was certainly glad that he had dragged himself out of bed to be here when he saw how Kaitlyn's eyes were gleaming happily in the firelight.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he replied, responding to her bright smile with one of his own before she was called over by someone else.

"Gotta go, but I love you, thanks for coming, bye," she said as she hurried over to someone else.

"Love you too..." Nico trailed off. He wondered for a second if he actually meant it or not- love was a fickle thing in his mind sometimes-before realizing that he did, in fact, mean it.

He grabbed a coke and a slice of store-bought chocolate cake before heading to the farthest away, least populated fire to sit and eat. The cake was pretty good.

It was about an hour and three more pieces of cake later when trouble walked up to him. That was mean, Will wasn't trouble, he was wonderful, Nico was the trouble.

"Hey, can we talk?" Will asked as he sat down gently, close enough for their legs to almost touch.

"Yeah," Nico said, not looking up and continuing to stare at the fire.

"Nico, I'm sorry for kissing you. I thought that you wanted it, that you wanted something more with me. I should have asked, I'm super sorry and I understand. We can totally go back to the friendship that we already had before I did this. No messy feelings, so yeah," Will said, exhaling afterward like he was a freed Atlas.

Nico was quiet for a long moment, trying to get his thoughts in order before he spoke. Every sentence he considered didn't make any sense. After a lot of deliberation, Nico found the right words. "You aren't the problem. I thought that I was messing up our friendship like I had led you on. But I guess neither of us was the problem and we both thought that we were," Nico said very quietly.

"Well, the consent thing was a problem, but I see what you mean," Will replied softly, as softly as his usually loud voice would allow. The whole world felt suddenly quiet as Will moved a bit closer to him. "Nico, I really like you, and I'm guessing that you like me back," Nico nodded, "so I hope I'm not out of line by saying this." Will moved his face closer, putting his fingers under Nico's chin and lifting it up, "can I kiss you?"

"Yes," Nico whispered before their lips were connected and Nico was once again on top of the world. Will continued kissing him in the same calm, sweet way in front of the fire until they heard someone nearby clearing their throat.

When the two broke off the kiss, Nico saw a boy that was probably older than him by a bit that he didn't recognize. He looked very uncomfortable and seemed to be about to leave.

"You two can keep going I was just about to leave," with that he walked off awkwardly to a different fire.

Nico could feel a blush going up his neck as he turned back to Will, slightly mortified. But Will just started laughing loudly, leaning forward until his forehead was against Nico's. 

"Don't be too embarrassed, that was really fucking funny," Will laughed out.

Nico giggled a bit, deciding that it was kind of funny. "You're so great," he murmured to Will, "can I kiss you?"

"Always," Will replied before they're lips connected in another soft kiss.


End file.
